Stuck in the Stages
by acrylicPsycho
Summary: You are Roxy Lalonde, and you are going through high school with your friends by your side. Good luck!
1. Chapter 1: Intro

**Okay, so, I'm going to take a shot at a fanfic!  
I'm not a very good writer, and anything I've written in the past has either been for school or was crack.  
Hopefully I can write something for serious this time?  
Oh well.  
Just a note- the other chapters will be much longer than this I swear, this is just an intro.  
I actually plan to make this a longfic I think it's called?  
Somewhere around 20-30 Chapters if I can keep up with it that long.**

**At any rate, enjoy(hopefully)!**

**~acrylicPsycho**

* * *

The bell rings.

_Here we go again._

That's the thought on the mind of everyone in this goddamn hellhole.

But none more so than yourself.

You're sixteen, in your third year of high school, and tired of the same thing, day in and day out.

You have a few friends in your year.

Your best friend, Jane Crocker, being the heiress to a fucking big ass company which you happen to hate, is kind and sweet and a little dorky.

Another one of your friends is Jake English, a really hot guy with a thick British accent that doesn't seem to know when he crosses the line from being funny to being a complete dweeb.

Last, but not least, you have Dirk Strider, who is the closest thing you have to a sassy gay friend, but replace 'sassy' with 'ironic cool kid'.

Those three, over time, have been the main factors in molding you into who you are today.

Your mom is absent for the most part, and you rely on your friends and several cats(though the only real one you have is Frigglish, the rest are encased in ice and mutant, as well as, frankly, looking quite fake) for any social activities.

You're a developing alcoholic, and you know it, though you claim you just drink for fun, even though you are drunk out of your mind most of the time.

You find that, sometimes, drinking is the only escape from the problems you have on a daily basis.

School-wise, you are considered to be on a higher class than a lot of people, as well as Dirk, and you two have brought Jake and Jane halfway up the social ladder with you.

Everyone wants to hang around with the cool kids, but you're just fine with real friends who don't want to be around you just because everyone else wants to be.

You're not the sharpest tool in the shed, but you somehow manage to get by, every year, with passing grades, in every class. It surprises even you.

Though it's probably only because Jane does her best to help you(meaning she lets you copy off her whenever possible, and Dirk makes sure no one finds out).

Very rarely does someone decide to go out of their way to put you down, but when they do, the Striders take the liberty of stepping in.

Their presence alone usually makes anyone with half a brain back off, but they've taken suspension after suspension and detention after detention to take care of anyone who "needs to learn who the fuck they're dealing with".

Despite all that, every time it happens, you die a little inside.

You still try to make the best of being in this pit of never-ending despair, though.

You've got your friends, you're moving forward, and there's nothing in your way but the odd speed bump, and those meld into the pavement after a few drinks.

Then everything is happy and wonderful again, and you have the time of your life.

Your name is Roxy Lalonde, and you're stuck in the bloody shitstorm hell's gate called school.

What will you do?


	2. Chapter 2: A Day In The Life

**Here's the first actual chapter!  
I tried to get everyone in character, but I don't think it worked that well. orz**

**Either way, enjoy!**

* * *

Back in class now, a young girl sluggishly took her seat near the back of the room, between another girl and a boy of the same age.

"Roxy, you're late again," the boy, sharing her platinum shade of blonde hair, muttered under his breath.

"G'mornin' to you too, Dirk," she responded, making him scoff. "Not like you're the golden child or anything anyway," she added, finally sitting down and pulling a laptop out of the bag she carried with her.

"You really do need to start getting to class on time..." This time the other girl spoke up, never shifting her gaze from the teacher, who was talking about something or other involving a kid that had gotten out of their seat without asking permission.

"I know, Janey, calm your tits." At this point, Roxy saying something like that wasn't near unusual, and both Jane and Dirk sort of brushed it off.

"Hey, wait, where's English?" She asked no one in particular when she noticed the seat beside Dirk was empty, and it was unusually quiet in their little group at the back.

"Dunno. He didn't tell me jack shit about not coming today." Dirk was the first to answer.

"Come to think of it, he didn't say anything to me, either. Perhaps he's sick?" Jane suggested, making Dirk roll his eyes behind his pointed "anime shades" and Roxy chuckled.

"That kid doesn't simply get sick," Dirk began. "The amount of times he's stayed outside overnight during thunderstorms and blizzards and whatever the fuck else, without a god damn tent or even a blanket, I'd say his immune system is like a fortress of British dorkine-"

"_Yawn._" Roxy interrupted, holding her hand over her wide open mouth to mock him before shutting it again. "We don't need a novel every time you say something, bro," she laughed under her breath. "He's not here. Okay then. Thanks for the news flash."

"Oh shut up." Dirk grumbled, beginning to type something as the clatter of fingertips against keyboard filled the room. This, of course, caught Roxy completely off guard.

"Hey, Jan-"

"Sorry I'm late, ol' chaps!" It seemed like everyone in the class looked up at the exact same time, staring at the buck-toothed boy that just burst into the room.

"And why were you late this morning, Mr. English?" The teacher inquired groggily, clearly not amused. Indifferent to him being clearly uninterested in what his answer might be, Jake broke into a toothy grin and a look that said "I'm glad you asked!" washed over his face.

"Three bloody wolves, there were! Right outside my door!" When the response he got was a skeptical glare, he continued. "Honest, Mr. Droog! Gramps says they were right scraggly and lookin' for food for their pups."

"Mhm, care to explain why miss Harley made it to to her class on time?"

"She took off out the back door and left me and our Grandpa to chase off those nasty creatures!"

"I'm sure. Take your seat, Jake." Mr. Droog dismissed him before turning back to his desk, leaving Jake to frown and make his way to the back of the room, some sets of eyes still following him until he sat down.

"Wolves, huh?" Dirk immediately questioned.

"It's true, I swear..." Jake sounded completely crestfallen, and Dirk gave him a gentle pat on the back.

"Hush now. There's no need to be upset," he mock-comforted, earning a punch on the shoulder from his friend, which made Jane and Roxy giggle. Jake opened up his own laptop, covered in stickers of cerulean women and jungle trees as well as creatures of the forest, and Roxy turned back to Jane.

"Anyway, yeah, Jan-"

"I'll e-mail you a template for it, you just fill in the blanks with your own words."

"Thanks, Janey," she chimed, opening the browser and playing Duck Life instead of doing any work. Though, of course, very grateful, she opened the file in the e-mail Jane sent her in Microsoft Word. It took a matter of ten minutes to finish off the sheet before she returned to her game.

* * *

"Hey, watch it, bitch!" Roxy looked down at the shouting, black haired first year she just walked into, having been distracted by explaining a very important matter(that may or may not have been how to make a great martini) to Jane.

"Whoa, settle down, it was a damn accide-"

"My big brother's gonna fucking beat the ever-loving shit out of you!" He snapped immediately, not giving her a chance to finish.

"Oh, really?" Roxy felt her blood run cold as a look of utter fear flushed over the kid's face as Dirk walked up to stand beside her, poker face on behind his shades and his arms crossed, glaring down at him. The kid didn't say another word, but instead he forced the fear off his face and struggled to rush to his feet and take off down the hallway, and a pain pierced at Roxy as he left.

"Dirk, you didn't need to..."

"Force of habit," was his simple reply before he looked back over to who appeared to be a younger version of himself; same color hair, similarly colored eyes, both sets covered by a pair of shades, and the same skinny, yet muscled build. The only real differences were the clothing, hairstyle, the shape of their shades, and height. Plus, the younger was quite a bit more pale, being closer to borderline albino.

"Dave, you know that kid?" Dirk questioned monotone, mouth barely moving as he spoke.

"S'Karkat. I've seen 'im in the hallway, s'bout it. One a' Egbert's friends." He responded with the same tone, just a bit higher pitched, as he gestured to the kid with square-framed glasses beside him. Dirk's reply was a sniff, and they continued down the hallway, John and Jake close behind. Roxy waited a moment before eventually going along as well, wishing Jane wasn't using her lunch hour to study for an upcoming test.

"Are you alright..? You seem a little out of it, mate." Roxy was ripped from her thoughts by Jake, his voice already soft to show his concern(and probably to make sure Dirk didn't butt in), and even softer with his accent. Of course, as always, it made her smile. She hesitantly nodded, then nodded again with a little more enthusiasm.

"Ye... Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks," she murmured, causing Jake's eyebrows to furrow.

"Are you sure? You know I'm always willing to listen to your problems. You can tell me anything."

"I know, Jakey," Roxy tried to sound as cheery as possible. "I'm fine, really. Don't worry about it!" She laced her words with a bit of a giggle, gently bumping his arm with her elbow as she did so. He shrugged it off, reluctantly turning back toward Dirk when he called his name. The platinum blonde boy murmured a few things in his ear and, even though no one could see it through his shades, he cast a glance back at Roxy a couple times. Jake proceeded to lean back from him a bit as he shook his head with a rather flustered look on his face, struggling to keep from looking back to Roxy as well. Dirk murmured something else, and it continued in a pattern like that for a while.

Roxy, on the other hand, rolled her eyes and sort of half-frowned, then looked down a bit when she noticed Dave and his friend had lagged a bit behind the other two boys, as if to keep her company.

" 'Sup, Lalonde?" Dave questioned flatly, forcing a giggle out of her.

"Nothin' much, lil' Strider," she answered in a mocking tone, earning a giggle-snort sound from John.

"Shut up, Egbert," Dave muttered jokingly.

Roxy chuckled again and listened to them talk back and forth between each other taking in little snippets of their conversation. Something about one kid in their class having passed out during a gory part of an education film they had watched, another thing about how their English teacher had gotten a paper cut and "had a fucking heart attack over it", and other things like that.

After the lunch break ended, both Dirk and Roxy decided to skip the rest of their classes for that day and go home.

"Mom! I'm home early!" Roxy stood completely silent in the doorway of her house after she shouted, hearing the faint echo and listening for a response. After a minute, there was, as usual, no sound to answer her, and she let out a sigh as she kicked off her shoes and dragged her bag to her room, where she immediately slid her bag in the corner and lay down on her bed, laptop on her stomach.

She first checked her emails to find no new messages, then her chat clients to have the same thing greet her, and not a soul online except for Dirk, but she knew he'd be too busy explaining to his much older brother why he was home early from school again. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back on her pillow, closing her laptop and sliding it off her stomach as she did so.

_Don't do it, Roxy.__  
_

_You're stronger than that.  
_

_You can't keep going back to it._

_Wait._

_Think about what you're doing to yourself._

_You're just making it worse for yourself._

_No, you idiot, st-_

_Oops, too late._

Roxy seemed to drown her mind and thoughts with the alcohol now slipping smoothly down her throat, the sickening taste dulled by the bottles and bottles she'd forced down in the years before. In addition to the taste no longer being revolting, she could also handle it a lot better than most. A lot better than she used to be able to.

It took her a matter of six good gulps of the vodka before she felt a buzz begin to grow behind her eyes and in the back of her skull, and she sat the bottle back down on her desk, flinching slightly at the _clunk_ sound it made, before closing her eyes and clenching her teeth.

When she was sure she could down more, she didn't hesitate, and took another gulp, leaving her room with the bottle hanging at her side when she swallowed. She made it to the living room before collapsing face first onto the couch, her knees hitting against the floor as she slumped forward.

Roxy lifted her head again only when she heard a soft purr that turned into a meow, then back to a purr, coupled with a small, furry object rubbing gently against the back of her head. She forced a smile, sat the bottle on the coffee table, and picked up the cat, who was wearing a tuxedo jacket that looked like it had been made for him by a very expensive tailor, which it was.

"Oh, Frig... Frigglish..." She murmured, slurring her words a bit.

"You notice when I'm upset, huh?" She smiled when he let out another purred meow, as if in response.

"Of course you do..." She positioned him so he was sitting on her lap and facing her, and he tilted his head a moment after.

"A lot of things have been happening again lately... But I had to tell Jake nothing was wrong, right?" She sighed, sliding her socked feet along the hardwood flooring.

"Dirk scared that kid because of me... The poor lil' guy..." Frigglish twitched an ear at her words, and it made her smile a little more, though it turned into a sad smile.

"Kinda like you, sweetie..." Roxy pulled Frigglish to her chest, hugging him gently and petting his head and half way down his spine even more gently, and repetitively. Eventually, her petting gradually slowed, and she drifted off to sleep, Frigglish following her soon after, curled up in her arms and lap.

* * *

Roxy was rudely awakened by a relatively quiet bang on the table, but more so by claws being involuntarily shoved through her clothes and into her skin.

"Christ!" She spat, letting her arms fall to the floor at her sides and her legs lay flat to allow Frigglish to take off in frightful interruption of his slumber.

"Rona will be rather displeased to find you've been drinking again, Roxy." She looked up to the source of the voice to find her sort of adopted sibling and the the bottle of remaining vodka had been the cause of the bang on the table.

"_Mom_ doesn't care that I drink alcohol," she began spitefully. "She sure as hell doesn't drink it, and there has to be some reason she keeps the house stocked full of the shit, you little snot."

The younger of the two snorted, a shit-eating smirk spreading across her face. "Whatever you say," she said as she shrugged, screwed the cap back on the bottle and heading for the cupboards to put it back where Roxy had originally gotten it from to take to her room.

"If she's mad, though, don't blame me. I did try to warn you, after all."

"Go get raped by those fucking wizard tentacles you're so obsessed with, Rose."

Rose only laughed snarkily and headed out of the kitchen and to her room before calling down the hallway, "I think you had better get to sleep before Rona sees your drunk ass and grounds it."

Roxy cursed under her breath, but reluctantly took Rose's advice, though sarcastic, and drug her feet along the floor on the way to her room, where she slumped onto her bed face first into her pillow and ass in the air, and drifted back to sleep only moments later.


	3. Chapter 3: HTStriders Have Problems, Too

**Sorry I took so long with this one! I'll try to update more often , seeing as school's almost over for me. -u-  
Also, I forgot to add my Tumblr and stuff! It's jimmyjanechocolathunda(period)tumblr(period)com.  
And if any of you use Pesterchum, feel free to pester me any time you like! My handle is flawlessSymmetry. ouo  
**

**Anyway, enough about that stuff.**  
**Enjoy, and please review if you have the time!**

* * *

Roxy squeezed her eyes even more shut and shifted in her sleep as she felt a gentle hand lay on her back, near the base of her neck, and her eyes fluttered open as it softly began to shake.

"Roxy. Roxy, dear, wake up."

She lifted her head and turned so she was sitting on her side, then yawned and rubbed her eyes before looking at the figure looming over her.

"Oh, hey... mornin', Mom..." Her voice was muffled by the last bits of sleep that still clung to her.

When the first rays of light hit her eyes, she was forced to squint and lift her arm up to shadow them as a headache rang through her skull, and when her mother shifted on the bed it sounded like gunshots.

"Good morning," she murmured quietly, as if she knew how loud everything was to her daughter. "Roxy, you were drinking again, weren't you."

Roxy flinched slightly at her question, which was worded more like a statement.

"Eh... Yeah, sorry..." She kept her voice low, feeling a bit of shame wash over her for some reason. Rona's gaze seemed to soften as she reached over and rested her hand on Roxy's side, rubbing slightly in an attempt of honestly unneeded comfort.

"Dear, you know you shouldn't do that... you're far too young to be drinking that much, you'll be an alcoholic before you're even legally allowed to drink..." Despite the scolding words, her voice was soft and soothing, and strangely reassuring.

"I know, I know, I'm so sorry, Mom..." Roxy murmured quietly before being pulled into a hug by her mother, who closed her eyes.

"You know I'll love you no matter what, I just want you to be safe..." Her voice was barely above a whisper at this point, and it almost sent Roxy into tears. She hated when she did that.

"I love you, too..." she finally decided to mutter, causing her mother to release her and give her a small, but genuine smile before getting up again and heading back out to the kitchen. Roxy sat on her bed for a few moments longer before she heard Rose from her room.

"There's only roughly another ten minutes before the school bus will arrive," she shouted down the hall before fixing her hair band in the mirror on the wall and brushing her skirt slightly with the back of her hands. She then headed out to wait on the couch so she wouldn't have to wait the whole time outside in the cold. Roxy groaned and lifted herself off her bed, stretching and stripping off her nightshirt, not caring her door was half open. There were a few articles of clothing tossed at the wall in the process, but she eventually left her room with a deep pink t-shirt with a white design on the front that hugged her curves, and a pair of dark, cobalt-ish blue, fairly tight jeans. She quickly ran a brush through her hair a few times and slid the tip of a brush, held by an experienced hand, under her eye to apply some eyeliner. She didn't bother with any other makeup, and she heard Rose shouting something else down the hallway toward her, then the door half slam, half shut normally, which made her groan in annoyance.

* * *

"Not a moment too soon," Rose scoffed as Roxy finally made her way outside just as the bus pulled up to their driveway, making her pick up her pace a bit until she climbed on, breaking into a grin to match the toothy one that greeted her in the very front seat. Jane scooted over to make room for her friend, while Jake gave a greeting from the seat across the aisle as she sat down.

"'Ello there miss Lalonde!" His cheery voice made her grin even wider and she gave a lazy wave.

"G'mornin', Jake," she replied, nodding toward Jane in greeting as well, who sort of giggled and nodded back.

"Any wolves around your house this morning?" She couldn't help but inquire, making Jake half frown, half scowl.

"No, as a matter of fact, there were not," he grumbled, facing in front of him again and earning a giggle from both the girls.

"Oh Jakey, I'm just teasin', you know that." Roxy reached over, playfully and gently punching Jake's shoulder, bringing his smile back a bit.

"It's just a shame no one seems to believe it, even Jade's saying I shouldn't be talking about it too much." His voice had an as-a-matter-of-factly tone, and Roxy lifted an eyebrow.

"Maybe you shouldn't. That's the kind of stuff that'd either bring a shit load of people around your house to hunt those wolves or at least look for them, or it'd make you the laughing stock of the school for a while." Jake seemed to find the reasoning in her words and shrugged, and then a comfortable silence fell over the three of them for the rest of the bus ride to school.

Roxy walked off the bus, about to turn and say something to Jane, but instead was greeted by the sight of a crowd in front of a particular part of the school. Curious, she decided to make her way to the crowd, pushing her way to the front when she caught sight of the familiar, gel-slicked, spiky hair showing above the assortment of heads. When she made it up to Dirk, realizing Jane and Jake had followed her now, she shifted her gaze to which way his shades were angled. Eyes resting on the roof of the school, she was just in time to see a red sleeve covered arm move out of sight.

"Holy hell, is that who I think it is?" She could stop the question, meaning to ask it in her head, though Dirk responded anyway.

"Yeah, he's up there making a joke of the Strider name." Despite how his voice was usually flat, she could hear a bit of annoyance lacing his words. Before Roxy could respond, she was interrupted by suddenly cluing in to the repetitive shouts of 'Dave!' and 'please come down!' coming from John and Jade beside her, and the borderline insane giggling of a strawberry blonde girl on the other side of them.

"Why is he even up there?" _This time? _She added those last two words silently, not really wanting to agitate her friend any more than he already was.

"I'm not even entirely sure. He decided to pull a stunt and bring the smallest katana in the house to school in his backpack," he began, not shifting his gaze from where his brother last was, but he turned his head toward Roxy a bit.

"In a matter of five minutes, it ended up in the office, he was threatened with a suspension, Dean was called, and Dave was on the roof yelling 'fuck the police' for a good minute or so." Roxy held back a groan at the situation, but Dirk seemed to notice her unvoiced reaction anyway.

"He'll be lucky if he isn't grounded for the rest of his life after this episode." Dirk's voice was lower this time, but Roxy wasn't sure if it was because he was more or less talking to himself, or if he was worried about seeing his older brother loose it at his younger brother. Again.

"He's not... is he..?" She was hesitant, mentally jumping through hoops to avoid hitting a nerve.

"No, he wasn't threatening suicide or anything. Just being an immature douche on an attention high," Dirk confirmed, his words letting her relax a bit.

"How long do you think he's gonna stay up there, then?" She returned her focus to roughly where she last saw Dave, idly letting her weight shift to one foot.

"Until Dean gets here. He has no clue they called him, he'll come down when he gets a hold of him."

Roxy frowned slightly. She knew the oldest of the Strider brothers certainly wasn't the kindest. Not from what she knew about him, anyway, even though she'd never actually seen him, let alone spoke to him. She was dragged from her thoughts as a loud, rough-sounding(though it looked next to brand new) Dodge Neon(product of pure irony) pulled up the school driveway, and stopped when the front tires rolled onto the grass. Only a moment later, the engine shut off and the door swung open. Roxy felt a bit of fear as a man stepped out, and Dirk tensed beside her before forcing himself to relax again.

"Shit, he's really pissed..." He murmured, and she just kept her mouth shut, not bothering to ask how Dirk knew that. He looked just as poker faced and as nonchalant and Dirk and Dave(usually) did. Dave seemed to have heard the car too, as he had stopped in his tracks and walked back over just enough to get a decent view of it, and gulped when he caught sight of his brother.

"Dave, get your ass down here." Dean's voice was a lot deeper than either of the younger brothers', projected just enough for Dave to hear him, and completely deadpan. He didn't even finish saying Dave's name before the thirteen-year-old had bolted for the stairs back down, emerging from the front doors barely a minute later.

By now, the crowd had died down to just Dirk, Roxy, Jane, Jake, John, Jade, and the random strawberry blonde giggler. However, the lack of people did nothing to make Dave seem any less nervous than he was. Dirk managed to move enough to give a motion that told everyone they should probably go, though Roxy stayed anyway as the younger kids scampered off to get ready for class, and Jake and Jane followed a bit more slowly.

It made Roxy jump a bit when Dean slammed the car door and walked calmly to the school doors, and passed Dave, going inside. A few seconds that seemed like an hour later, he came back out holding a small, sheathed katana that could have passed for a dagger.

"Come on," he said as he nudged Dave with the hilt on his way past. He paused for a moment when he was about to pass by Dirk again, looking at his younger brother.

"You got one too?" Dirk barely shook his head, and it was replied to with a nod that was just as faint before Dean kept going, heading for the car and with Dave a few feet behind him. They both got in, and as soon as the doors shut, Dean began to speak.

"What the hell was that?" He asked flatly, and Dave just stared forward at the dash, completely silent.

"Bringing a fucking weapon to school, Jesus Dave, that shit got you suspended again. I don't need this right now, you know that." Dave flinched at his words, but still remained silent as he started up the car again, driving up over the grass and looping around the the pavement again, leaving the way he came.

Roxy turned and gulped absently as she noticed Dirk started back toward the school, opening the door and walking inside just as the bell sounded. She didn't take her time in following him, sprinting a couple steps to catch up before walking again, heading for her homeroom class.

* * *

Roxy giggled when the vibrations of her cellphone disturbed Friglish, who had been laying on it, and he hissed at the cellular device with his fur partially on end. She picked it up and selected her text message inbox, smiling when she saw the sender was Dirk.

_Yo Lalonde, what's going on in your neck of the woods?_

She couldn't help but laugh. He always used phrases like that via text, but never out loud, for some reason.

_nothin 2 mcuh qt ;P u?_

_Christ, are you drunk already? We just got off school an hour ago._

_no shh it was jsut a mratinii i sware_

_Groan. If you say so._

_anyhore wat hapend 2 dave?_

_He's suspended for the rest of the week and grounded for another week after that. Bro was really pissed off at him, I'm surprised he's not being punished longer._

_wowwww tuff brake 4 the mini striderr :(_

_Not really. Like I said, I expected him to get worse._

_he stlil got grunded thoooo_

_He also brought a damn katana to school and ran around on the roof. There could have been a lock down because of that._

_but ther wsnttttt_

_Sigh._

_k well getting off taht topic wat r u doin now?_

_Just about to start jacking off to some wonderful erotic MLP fanfiction and pornography._

_wtf dirk nooooo im not sure whats worse... the fcat that stuf exists or that ur getting off on it pls tell me this is 1 of ur irony things it is rite omg plsssss_

_That's for you to decide._

_omgggggggggggggggggggg nooooooooooo_

_Settle down, I'll be doing no such thing. Honestly I find even the thought of doing something like that completely revolting._

_holy shit good thats fuking retraded_

_I agree._

Not able to think of a reply, and still a little disgusted by Dirk's choice of antics, Roxy reached over to plug in her phone to charge and she instead picked up her laptop, sipping at her(fourth) martini as she waited for it to start up. When it was finished, she opened her browser and typed something in on Google, and he then clicked a link that took her to an online Atari emulator that had _Adventure _loaded on it. The game itself was horridly simple, and the graphics were even more horrid, but it was strangely addictive all the same.

She managed to dick around with the game for a solid three hours before Rose came home from visiting her friend, Kanaya, and it made Roxy get eaten by a dragon via game, which made her groan out loud. She glared at her door when she heard a light knock, and she made a sort of grunt sound to allow entry. Rose slowly opened the door, and blinked at the mild mess in the elder's room.

"Roxy, has Rona made her way home yet, by any chance?" She queried innocently, returning her eyes to Roxy.

"Nah, she's gonna be staying overnight somewhere for work, remember?" Roxy's reply was muttered, as she was trying to make it past the same dragon that had eaten her earlier.

"Ah, yes, that's right. I can't believe I had forgotten." And with that, Rose turned and left, shutting the door quietly behind her as she made her way to her own room and shut that door behind her as well.

Roxy rolled her eyes, then grinned widely as she watched the poorly made dragon tilt its head back while the three second long, 8-bit victory sound chimed through her speakers, signaling she had killed it. However, she was forced to pause her game when she heard a _bang_ in the kitchen, followed by a _mrrrow _from Friglish. She sat her laptop aside and jumped up, walking down the hall, only to find her cat purring as he licked at a pile of wet cat food that had been knocked on the floor from the half-full can on the counter. She chuckled, putting the food in his dish and cleaning up the few little smudges left on the floor, then went back to her room after petting him for a few moments.

Roxy let out a yawn as she sat back on her bed, and she closed her laptop, setting it on the floor before curling up. She felt like going to sleep early tonight, feeling a bit more tired than usual. It wasn't long before she got her wish, as she slowly drifted off to sleep, wrapped in the darkness that was creeping into her room through her window.


End file.
